So after reading the Twilight series a few times, I got sucked back into the fantasy genre.

Pucker by Melanie Gideon ****
Pucker is about a boy who lived in a different world until a fire broke out in his house and his mother and him have to escape to Earth. Thomas, the boy, is cursed with a severely burnt face which causes him to be made fun of. When Thomas's mother, who is a seer, gets sick she tells him the only way to save her is if Thomas travels back to the other world and gets her skin (seers have an outer skin that is often stolen for money. the mothers skin was stolen the day of the fire).

This was an EXCELLENT book. I would recommend it to pretty much anyone. It starts out a bit frustrating by making it seem like the reader should already know what is being talked about, but this quickly changes. Its exciting and has a twist at the end that actually hit me and got me thinking (I had to put the book down to actually wrap it around my head), one of the most shocking I've experienced (up there with The Village, which was crazy shocking to me).

A definite read!

Dingo by Charles de Lint **
Dingo is about a boy in high school who meets a girl and her strange dog. The girl is extremely mysterious and they take a quick liking to one another. The boy, Miguel, quickly learns that not all is what it seems with the girl.

This book is 224 pages long, yet it felt like I was reading a story book. In fact, I have no freaking clue how this book is 224 pages long. Don't get me wrong, its an entertaining book, but thats about all it is. There is no depth to it and you can pretty much guess whats going to happen 5 steps before it does.

What really floored me was that it won some fantasy award. This must be some really unknown award, or it had a lot of really crappy entries, because I have NO idea how it got any award. I constantly felt like it was written by a 14 year old who has good ideas and thinks they can write, but they can't.

If you have the book available to you and don't have a better choice, go for it. But I would never recommend having someone go out of their way to get it.



I also read:

The Faerie Path by Frewin Jones ***
The Lost Queen by Frewin Jones *** (sequel to The Faerie Path)
The Warrior Heir by Cinda Williams Ghima

All were pretty good and entertaining but I'm exhausted right now and don't feel like reviewing them when i have to get up at 5 AM tomorrow. I might come back and do it later.

I feel like I've read some other books, but they were library books and they were due so I had to return them and I don't remember what I read


I've also been wondering... is it a prerequisite to have a very strange name to write fantasy books? I mean Frewin? Cinda? Tamara? Eoin? Nicola?
Just an end thought to keep you thinking.